3.
�her
The Book of Enlightenment
TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION
BY
DANIEL CHANAN MATT
PREFACE
BY
ARTHUR GREEN
PAULIST PRESS
NEW YORK • RAMSEY • TORONTO

4.
Cover Art:
M IC H A EL BOGDA NOW is a native of Houston, Texas. He now li ves near Boston and
is completing a Juris Doctor degree at Harvard Law School while continuing with his
art. "My art is motivated by a desire to communicate with people, to express feeli ngs and
ideas that cannot necessarily be captured by word," he says.
Copyright� 1 9 8 3 by Daniel Chanan Matt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the pub­
lisher.
Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 8 3 -82 1 4 5
ISBN: 0-809 1 -2 3 87-8 (paper)
0-809 1 -0 3 2 0-6 (cloth)
Published by Paulist Press
545 Island Road, Ramsey, N.J. 07446
Printed and bound in the
United States of America

8.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been blessed with wise teachers and understanding �avrayya.
Here I thank a few who read portions of the manuscript: Pamela
Adelman, Alexander Altmann, Michael Fishbane, Arthur Green, Burt
Jacobson, Steve Joseph, Ana Massie, Jo Milgrom, Stephen Mitchell,
Sara Shendelman, and David Winston.
I am grateful to John Farina and Richard Payne, editors at Paulist
Press, for their help and encouragement.

9.
Editor of This Volume
DANIEL CHANAN M ATT teaches at the Center for Judaic Studies
in the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. He received
his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and has taught at Boston Universi­
ty and the University of Texas at Austin. His edition of David ben
Yehudah he-I:Iasid's Book of Mirrors was published by Scholars Press i n
1982.
A uthor of the Preface
ARTHUR GREEN is a student of Jewish mysticism and theology. He
is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Penn­
sylvania. His anthology Y
our Word Is Fire, co-edited with Barry W.
Holtz, was published by Paulist Press in 1977. Tormented Master: A Lif
e
of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav appeared in 1979. Dr. Green serves on the
editorial board of the Classics of Western Spi rituality Series.

10.
PREFACE
One who delves into the religious literature of some figures and
periods can never forget the profound link that exists between spiritu­
al creativity and the poetic imagination. The reader of Solomon Ga­
birol or Judah Halevi among the medieval Hebrew poets, like the
reader of Joh n of the Cross, to limit the consideration to fellow
Spaniards, will perforce see how the poetic vehicle and the religious
message converge to influence and mediate one another.
This is not so obviously the case with the Zohar, the magnum opus
of Spanish-Jewish Kabbalah in the late thi rteenth century. Here the
thicket of symbolism is so dense, and the Aramaic prose in which the
work is presented often so obscure, that the sense of the poetic is not
immediately apparent. The author of the Zohar was, however, pos­
sessed of a truly magnificent literary imagination, and he created out
of the emerging kabbalistic tradition a work of masterful poetic scope,
though doing so without recourse to those specific literary canons that
distinguished "poetry" in his age. Working with an already established
system of symbolic correspondences (the sefirot, as will be explained
below), Moses de Leon was able to keep the conventionalized religious
language in the background, and to sing loftily of lights and sparks,
sun and moon, flowing streams and rivers, and, most passionately, of
the unending love between the celestial Bridegroom and His Bride.
Such was the fate of this work, however, that it came to be
increasingly venerated by generations of devotees who sought to make
its poetry transparent, to see beyond the imagery i nto the "true"
religious meaning of the text, exegeting it much as the early rabbis had
the Bible, to find in each word or phrase previously unseen layers of
sacred meaning. As kabbalistic thought itself developed, particularly
after the sixteenth century, a new and infinitely more complicated
system of symbols, based on further development of zoharic themes,
supplanted the old. Now the purpose of exegesis became a rereading of
the Zohar i n this later spirit, seeking to find the Lurianic teach ing, as it
was called, in the more venerable source. Commentaries of the Zohar
became increasingly illegible to the noninitiate, and even once deci-
Xl l l

11.
PREFACE
phered had increasingly little to do with the original meaning of the
Zohar text.
As moderns have turned their attention once again to the study of
Zohar, largely under the inspiration of Gershom Scholem and his
Jerusalem school of kabbalistic history, the task of exegesis has turned
again to peshat, the attempt to reconstruct the symbolic meaning of the
Zohar's fantasy-laden means of expression. Here too, however, the goal
is to some extent one of penetrating beyond the surface content of the
work, translating its unique poetic back into the conventional symbol­
clusters of kabbalistic tradition.
It is the strength of the work before us that its editor has refused
to follow such a generally accepted method. The work you are about to
read, both in selection and translation, is an act of daring, the creation
of a young scholar undaunted by the conventions of the academy. He
seeks to do nothing less than to recover de Leon the poet, to allow the
Zohar to be read, perhaps for the first time since it emerged from the
author's mind into the written word, first as a work of poetic i magina­
tion, and only second, through a highly competent series of notes, as a
textbook of kabbalistic symbolism. It is characteristic of the editor and
his intent that he chose to place the notes at a distance from the text
itself, so that the reader be left the choice of when-and indeed
whether-to consult them.
In both readings, that of translation alone and that of text as
explicated in the notes, Matt's Book o Enligbtenment is one that the
f
Zohar's author would enjoy, and one that the thoughtfu l reader will
find enriching, on more than one level.
Arthur Green
XIV

12.
FOREWORD
Sefer ha-Zohar, the Book of Splendor, Radiance, Enlightenment,1 has
amazed and overwhelmed readers for seven centuries. The Zohar is the
major text of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. It is arranged in
the form of a commentary on the Torah, the Five Books of Moses. It is
a mosaic of Bible, midrash (see Glossary), medieval homily, fiction, and
fantasy. Its central theme is the interplay of human and divine reali­
ties. Its language is a peculiar brand of Aramaic that breaks the rules of
grammar and invents words.
Who wrote the Zohar? The question has been debated ever since
the first hand-written booklets were distributed in Spain late in the
thirteenth century. The Introduction below tells the story of the
answer.
The Zohar is immense. This volume contains approximately 2
percent of the entire work. It is presumptuous to pick and choose from
a mystical corpus, but I have tried to select passages that are spiritually
evocative and that demonstrate the uniqueness of the Zohar's encoun­
ter with Torah. I have supplied the passages with titles, and occasional­
ly omitted material within a passage, in which case the omission is
indicated by ellipsis points. An index at the end of the volume identi­
fies the location of the passages in the Zohar. The translation attempts
to convey the lyrical flavor of the original without smoothing away its
rough vibrancy.
The Zohar is an esoteric and cryptic work, a commentary that
requires a commentary. The notes in the second half of the volume are
designed to guide the reader through the maze of kabbalistic symbol­
ism and to identify rabbinic sources and zoharic parallels. Here I have
relied especially on Ketem Paz by Shim'on Labi; Or ha-f!ammah, edited
by Avraham Azulai; Ni?;O?;ei Zohar by Re'uven Margaliot (printed in
his edition of the Zohar); .Mishnat ha-Zohar by Isaiah Tishby; and the
works of Gershom Scholem (nishmato eden). I suggest that the reader
first encounter each passage on his own, and then go back to study it
with the notes, which are unnumbered (except in the Foreword and
Introduction) and keyed to a particular Zohar selection.
XV

13.
FOREWORD
The teachings of Kabbalah are profound and powerful. One who
hopes to enter and emerge in peace must be careful, persevering, and
receptive. Follow the words to what lies beyond and within. Open the
gates of imagination. Let Zohar alefthe Ineffable.
XVI

15.
With the l ight created by God during the six days of
Creation
Adam could see from one end of the world to the other.
God hid the light away for the righteous in the hereafter.
Where did He hide it?
In the Torah.
So when I open The Book o lobar, I see the whole world.
f
-Israel son of Eli'ezer
the Ba 'a/ Shem Tov
The Zohar has kept me Jewish.
-Pinhas of Koretz
Hasidic rabb i 1

16.
1
Seven hundred years ago, a Spanish Jewish mystic named Moses
de Leon began circulating booklets to his friends and fellow kabbalists.
These booklets contained teachings and tales that had never been seen
or heard. Moses claimed that he was merely the scribe, copying from
an ancient book of wisdom. The original had been composed in the
circle of Rabbi Shi m'on son of Yo�ai, a famous teacher of the second
century who lived in the land of Israel and, according to tradition,
spent twelve years secluded in a cave. After Rabbi Shim'on's death, so
the story goes, the book was hidden away or secretly handed down
from master to disciple. Only recently had it been sent from Israel to
Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Then it fell into the hands of Moses
de Leon of Guadalajara. He took it upon himself to spread the ancient
secrets, copying portions from the original manuscript and offering
them for sale.
But history impinged. In 1 2 9 1 the Mamluks conquered the city of
Acre in Israel and massacred most of the Jewish and Christian inhabi­
tants. One of the few who managed to escape was a young man named
Isaac son of Samuel. He journeyed to Italy and eventually to Spai n,
arriving in Toledo in 1 305. Isaac, who later became one of the leading
kabbalists of the fourteenth century, was amazed at the reports he
heard about the newly discovered Midrash of Rabbi Shi m'on. The
book had supposedly been written in Israel, but Isaac was from Israel
and had never heard of it.
According to his diary, Isaac sought out those who possessed the
booklets and was informed that the distributor was Moses de Leon,
whom he located in Valladolid. Moses assured him that he owned the
original manuscript composed by the ancient sage, and that he would
let Isaac see it if he came to Avi la, where Moses now lived. They parted
company. Moses set out for his home, but on the way, in the town of
Arevalo, he became ill and died. When Isaac heard the news, he went
straight to Avila to see if anyone there knew the truth about the book.
He was told that immediately following Moses' death, the wife of
Joseph de Avila, the tax collector of the province, had offered her son
3

17.
INTRODUCTION
in marriage to the daughter of Moses de Leon's widow in exchange for
the ancient manuscript. Moses' widow had responded:
Thus and more may God do to me if my husband ever
possessed such a book! He wrote it entirely from his own
head. When I saw him writing with nothing in front of him, I
said to him, "Why do you say that you are copying from a
book when there is no book? You are writing from your head.
Wouldn't it be better to say so? You would have more honor!"
He answered me, "If I told them my secret, that I am writing
from my own mind, they would pay no .attention to my
words, and they would pay nothing for them. They would
say: 'He is inventing them out of his imagination.' But now
that they hear that I am copying from The Book of Zohar
composed by Rabbi Shim'on son of Yo�ai through the Holy
Spirit, they buy these words at a high price, as you see with
your very eyes!"
Isaac was aghast when he heard this story. He traveled on to make
further inquiries and found support for Moses' claim that the book was
ancient. He heard a report that Rabbi Jacob, a former student of Moses
de Leon, had sworn that "the Zohar composed by Rabbi Shim'on son
of Yo�ai . . . " And here the citation from Isaac's diary breaks of£.2
Moses de Leon's name faded. The Zohar was gradually accepted as
the ancient wisdom of Rabbi Shim'on and his circle. By the middle of
the sixteenth century, it ranked with the Bible and the Talmud as a
sacred text. While kabbalists delved into its mysteries, Oriental Jews
chanted the strange Aramaic, often unaware of the literal sense. But
both groups, and countless others, were inspired and uplifted by the
Holy Zohar.3
4

18.
2
Who was Moses de Leon? Devoted scribe or devious author?
As with many mystics, the facts of Moses' life are scarce. In one of
his books, he calls hi mself "Moses son of Shem Tov from the city of
Leon. "4 The year of his birth is unknown, but by 1 264 he was engaged
in the study of philosophy, for in that year a Hebrew translation of
Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed was copied "for the erudite [ha­
maskil] Rabbi Moses de Leon."5 (The Guide, completed about 1 200 in
Egypt, was a grandiose attempt at a synthesis of Jewish faith and
Aristotelian philosophy.) Philosophy, however, was not Moses de
Leon's only undertaking. He immersed himself in rabbinic literature
and was also drawn to the teachings of Kabbalah.
Kabbalah means "receiving" and refers to that which is handed
down by tradition. For many centuries the word was used quite
generally, but by the time of Moses de Leon, the term Kabbalah
denoted esoteric teachings, techniques of meditation, and a growing
body of mystical literature. A kabbalistic movement had emerged in
Provence and Catalonia toward the end of the twelfth and the begin­
ning of the thi rteenth centuries. The famous rabbi Na�manides of
Gerona explored the teachings and helped Kabbalah gain wider accep­
tance. The movement spread westward to Castile (central Spain).
Wandering south from Leon, Moses came to know some of the kabba­
lists and was introduced to the Bahir ("Brightness"), the main text of
Proven<;al Kabbalah, to the teachings of the school of Gerona, and to
more recent Castilian formulations.6
Moses de Leon did not reject phi losophy. Many of h is kabbalistic
comrades had also studied the Guide of the Perplexed, and there were
parallels and connections between Maimonides' system and Kabbalah.
Both adopted the Neoplatonic scheme; both aimed at contemplative
union with higher spheres; both were dissatisfied with the plain, literal
meaning of Torah and sought to spiritualize its teaching.
However, Moses and his fellow kabbalists saw the effects of radi­
cal rationalism on Spanish Jewry. Maimonides had written his Guide in
Arabic for an intellectual elite. Once it was translated into Hebrew
5

19.
INTRODUCTION
and transplanted to Spain, rationalism became the vogue among the
Jewish upper class. Many of these wealthy, assimilated Jews embraced
a rationalistic ideology not for the pursuit of truth but in order to
j ustify their neglect of tradition. In his Sefer ha-Rimmon ("Book of the
Pomegranate"), Moses de Leon lashes out at these lazy scoffers:
When they are alone with one another, they ridicule and
mock [the words of the rabbis] and delight in the words of the
Greeks and their assistants [the medieval philosophers]. They
kiss their words! Furthermore, I have seen them on the festi­
val of Sukkot ["Booths"] standing in their places in the syna­
gogue, watching the servants of God circling with palm
branches around the Torah scroll in the ark, laughing at them
and mocking them, saying that they are fools without any
knowledge. Meanwhile, they have no palm branch and no
citron. They claim: "Has not the Torah said to take these in
order to 'rejoice in the presence of YHVH your God for seven
days' (Leviticus 23 :40)? Do you think these species will make
us happy? Silver and gold ornaments and fine clothes make us
happier!" And they say, "Do you think we have to bless God?
Does He need this? Foolishness!" Eventually there are no
phylacteries on their heads. When you ask them why, they
answer, " Phylacteries are only meant to be 'a reminder be­
tween your eyes' (Exodus 1 3 :9). This is no reminder. It is
better to mention the Creator with our mouths several times a
day. That is a better and more fitting reminder!" They take
those books and see those words and say that this is the Torah
of truth!7
Moses was incensed at this cavalier attitude toward tradition. At
the same time, he was dissatisfied with the traditionalists. Having
experienced the knowledge of Kabbalah, he was no longer content
with mere book learning. In his Or Zaru 'a ("Sown Light"), Moses
writes:
I have seen some people called "wise." But they have not
awoken from their slumber; they just remain where they
are . . . . Indeed, they are far from searching for His glorious
Reality. They have exchanged His Glory for the image of a
6

20.
INTRODUCTION
bull eati ng grass [cf. Psalms 106:20]. For when one of them
comes to the case of a bull that is to be stoned [because it
gored someone; see Exodus 2 1 : 28-3 2 ; Mishnah and Talmud,
Bava Qqmma, 4], and he finds out exactly how it should be
stoned, he thinks he is a great wise man and has achieved what
no one else has. Now i ndeed, all the words of the rabbis, may
their memory be a blessi ng, are true and perfect; they are all
words of the living God! But having reached this case, which
is one level, why does he not ascend from wisdom to wisdom,
from level to level?
The ancient wise ones have said that there was once a
man who engaged i n Mishnah and Talmud all his days ac­
cording to his animal knowledge. When the time came for
him to depart from the world, he was very old, and people
said that he was a great wise man. But one person came along
and said to him, "Do you know your self? All the limbs in
your body, what are they for?" He said, " I do not know. "
"Your little finger, what is it for?" He said, " I d o not know."
"Do you know anything outside of you, why it is how it is?"
He began shouting at everyone, "I do not know my self! How
can I know anything outside my self?" He went on, "All my
days I have toiled in Torah until I was eighty years old. But i n
the final year I attai ned n o more wisdom or essence than I
attained i n those first years when I began studying." The
people asked, "Then what did you toi l over all these years?"
He said, "What I learned in the beginning." They said, "This
wise man is nothing but an animal without any knowledge.
He did not k now the purpose of all his work; just like an
animal carrying straw on its back, not knowing whether it is
sifted grai n or straw!" . . . See now how my eyes shine, for I
have tasted a bit of this honey! 0 House of Jacob! Come, let us
walk i n the light of YHVH!8
Moses settled i n the city of Guadalajara and sometime between
1 2 75 and 1 2 80 began to produce a mystical Midrash. The root of
midrash means "to search." Midrash is the ancient technique of search­
ing for the meaning of passages, phrases, and i ndividual words of the
Bible. It includes philology, etymology, hermeneutics, homiletics, and
imagination. The earliest M idrashim were edited during the fourth
7

21.
INTRODUCTION
and fifth centuries. Moses called this creation Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam, the
Concealed Midrash, the Esoteric Midrash, an ancient composition that
had disappeared until now.9
Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam is the earliest stratum of the Zohar. It is a
commentary on parts of the Torah and the Book of Ruth. We also
possess Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam on the beginning of Lamentations and the
beginning of Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam on Song of Songs.10 The style of these
passages reveals that Moses de Leon is still under the influence of
philosophy. He employs philosophical terminology and the technique
of allegory. Abram's journey to the land of Canaan, for example, is
presented as the journey of the soul into the world. 1 1 The language of
Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam is a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, unlike that of
the rest of the Zohar, which is completely Aramaic. Aramaic, the
language of the Talmud, spoken hardly anywhere in the medieval
world, lent an ancient tone to the Zohar and clothed its radical teach­
ings in the garb of tradition. 12
The figure of Rabbi Shim'on appears in Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam, but he
is not the only master. At times Eli'ezer son of Hyrcanus, an earlier
rabbi, is the hero. At other times there is no single master. Rather, we
meet a whole array of talmudic figures, many of whom lived centuries
apart. In the main body of the Zohar the anachronisms are fewer
though still striking; Rabbi Shim'on is the undisputed Holy Light.
By the year 1 2 8 1 Moses de Leon had already shown parts of
Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam to at least one of his kabbalistic colleagues in
Guadalajara, Isaac son of Solomon Abi Sabula. In Isaac's Mesbal ba­
Qgdmoni ("Fable of the Ancient"), written in that year, there appear
one quotation and one paraphrase from Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam and several
oblique references to the work. Two years later Isaac completed a
mystical commentary on the Song of Songs in which he quotes eight
passages from Midrasb ba-Ne 'elam. Apparently Isaac knew the real
origin of these citations and was helping to spread the "ancient"
teachings.13
Between 1 280 and 1286 Moses de Leon produced the main body of
the Zohar, a rambli ng mystical commentary on the Torah containing a
number of distinct literary compositions. 14 The language is a pseudo­
Aramaic spoken by Rabbi Shim'on and his disciples as they wander
through the Galilee exchanging kabbalistic insights. The Zohar refash­
ions the Torah's narrative into a mystical novel. On one level, the
biblical heroes are the protagonists, and the rabbis interpret their
words, their personalities, and their encounters with holy or demonic
8

22.
INTRODUCTION
forces. The commentary is often far removed from the literal meaning
of the biblical text. The words of Torah are a starting poi nt, a spring­
board for the imagination. At ti mes the commentators become the
main characters, and we read about dramatic study sessions with Rabbi
Shim'on or about the rabbis' adventures on the road.
In the standard printed editions of the Zohar there is one volume
on Genesis, one on Exodus, and one on the remaining three books of
the Torah: Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. On Deuteronomy,
in fact, there are only a few Zohar passages. It is unlikely that signifi­
cant portions have been lost. Rather, at a certai n poi nt Moses de Leon
simply exhausted his creative power or felt that he had done enough
and turned his attention elsewhere.15
From 1 286 until his death in 1 305, Moses wrote books i n Hebrew
under his own name and copied out portions of the Zohar for sale and
circulation. His Hebrew writings are fi lled with the ideas and i magery
of the Zohar and serve as a valuable commentary. They were intended
to prepare his reading aud ience for the publication of his pseudepi­
graphic magnum opus. Frequently in these books Moses alludes to the
Zohar: "It is expounded in the inner Midrashim"; "They say in the
secrets of Torah"; "The pillars of the world have discussed the secrets
of their words"; "I have seen a profound matter in the writings of the
ancients"; "I saw in the Y
erushalmi"; "I have seen in the secrets of the
depth of wisdom."16 Moses is tantalizing the reader, hinting that an
unknown book of ancient wisdom has been discovered. Soon it will be
available.
Moses remained in Guadalajara until at least 1 29 1 , 17 a nd from
there he began circulating the Zohar. He did not distribute entire
copies of the book, just portions. This is indicated i n the diary of Isaac
of Acre and accords with the fact that the first authors to quote the
Zohar cite only certai n sections. No complete manuscript has yet been
found. When the Zohar was first printed in Italy in the sixteenth
century, the editors had to combine several manuscripts to produce a
complete text. Later other manuscripts were located, and an additional
volume was printed elsewhere. 1 8
Despite Moses' efforts, the Zohar was not accepted by everyone as
an ancient work. We have already heard of the i nvestigation of Isaac of
Acre. There were other kabbalists who treated the Zohar with re­
straint, for example, the students of Rabbi Solomon son of Abraham
ibn Adret of Barcelona. In 1 340 the phi losopher and kabbalist Joseph
ibn Waqqar warned: "Very many errors occur in the book. Therefore
9

23.
INTRODUCTION
it is necessary to be careful and keep a safe distance from it i n order not
to make mistakes."19
A number of adventurous souls followed Moses' example and
produced thei r own ancient Midrashim. Foremost among these were
Ra 'aya Meheimna ("The Faithful Shepherd") and Tiqqunei Zohar ("Em­
bellishments on the Zohar"), written at the end of the thirteenth or the
beginning of the fourteenth century. These two imitations were suc­
cessful enough to become part of the zoharic literature. Ra 'aya Me­
heimna is actually printed as part of the Zohar, while Tiqqunei Zohar
appears in a separate volume.20 Another kabbalist, David son of Judah
the l:fasid, wrote Mar 'ot ha-'Z:ove 'ot ("The Book of Mirrors") in the
early fourteenth century. This work contains numerous translations of
Zohar passages into Hebrew along with rabbinic Midrashim, selec­
tions from thirteenth-century kabbalistic literature, and the author's
own imitations of Zohar.21
10

24.
3
Gradually the Zohar's antiquity was accepted by kabbalists. How­
ever, it was not read or circulated beyond small circles. In the middle
of the fifteenth century the Marrano Pedro de Ia Caballeria stated that
few Jews possessed the Zohar.22 It was not until after the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain in 1492 that the Zohar became the Bible of
Kabbalah. From 15 30 onward, Sa fed, Israel, was a meeting place for
kabbalists. One of them, Moses Cordovero, wrote two systematic books
of Kabbalah based on the Zohar and also a long commentary on it.
Isaac Luria developed a new system of Kabbalah that drew heavily on
certain sections of the Zohar. The mystical-ethical literature that
emerged from this circle helped to popularize the Zohar's teachings,
while the messianic fervor generated here encou raged the spreading of
the secrets. Earlier kabbalists had already made a connection between
the dissemination of Kabbalah and the redemption of Israel, but now
studying the Zohar was raised to the level of a divine command:
The decree from above not to engage openly i n the wisdom of
Kabbalah was meant to apply only for a set time, until 1 490.
From then on is the time of the last generation [before the
Messiah]; the decree is rescinded, and permission is granted to
engage in studying The Book of Zohar. From 1540 on, the best
way to fulfill the mi-z:vah [divine command] is to engage in it
publicly, young and old . . . . Since this and nothing else will
bring about the coming of King Messiah, do not be negli­
gent!23
The technology of printing made it feasible for young and old to
engage in the Zohar. Between 1 5 58 and 1 560 the first two editions
appeared in the neighboring Italian cities of Mantua and Cremona.
There was a fierce controversy over the printing; among the oppo­
nents were kabbalists who felt that it was dangerous and forbidden to
reveal such secrets of Torah. They did not agree that the decree from
above had been rescinded. Others opposed publication because they
11

25.
INTRODUCTION
suspected that the Zohar was a late work. However, the editors coun­
tered these objections, and The Book o Enlightenment became available
f
to wider circles.24
Even before the Zohar was printed, it had aroused the i nterest of
certain Christians. At the end of the fifteenth century, Pico della
M irandola and Johannes Reuchlin took up the study of Kabbalah.
They became convinced that it contained the original divine revelation
and that its true, hidden meaning accorded with the secrets of the
Christian faith. They tried to identify kabbalistic parallels to the
Trinity, Incarnation, the Virgin Mother, the Name of Jesus, and
Original Sin. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Franciscan
Francesco G iorgio of Venice used manuscript material from the Zohar
extensively in his works, and Guillaume Postel began to translate the
Zohar i nto Latin.25
The claims of Christian Kabbalah helped stimulate the first criti­
cal work on the Zohar, Ari Nohem ("Roaring Lion"), written by the
Italian rabbi and scholar Leone Modena in 1 639. Modena stated flatly
ut the Zohar was not composed by Rabbi Shim'on or his circle; that
it could not be "more than 3 50 years old." He praised the Zohar's style
and inspirational effect but identified anachronisms to prove its recent
origin and i mpugn its authority.26 By now, however, the Zohar was
too highly venerated to be openly challenged. Modena did not dare to
publish Ari Nohem; it was printed only in 1 840, nearly two hundred
years after the author's death. Until then it circulated in manuscript.
Certain freethinkers approved, while one kabbalist of the eighteenth
century, Moses .f:layyim Luzzatto, responded to it with a written
defense of Kabbalah. 27
It was not until the second half of the eighteenth century that a
major critical work on the Zohar was printed. This book too was
written with polemical intent. Sabbatianism, the messianic movement
of the seventeenth century, was based on Lurianic Kabbalah and relied
heavily on the Zohar for imagery, symbolism, and doctrine. In fact,
Shabbetai �evi, the hero of the movement and reputed Messiah, was
more influenced by the Zohar than by Luria.28 In 1 666 the royal
council of Turkey, alarmed at Shabbetai's growing power and eccen­
tric behavior, offered him the choice of being put to death or convert­
ing to Islam. Shabbetai converted, but the movement persisted and was
driven completely underground only at the start of the eighteenth
century.
One of the most dedicated opponents of the later secret sect was
12

26.
INTRODUCTION
Jacob Emden, a noted rabbi and halakhic authority. He pursued sus­
pected Sabbatians, i ncluding the famous rabbi Jonathan Eybesch uetz,
and developed an extraordi nary critical abil ity for uncovering heretical
allusions in Sabbatian l iterature. This led him to a critical read ing of
the Zohar, the bastion of Sabbatianism. Emden believed firmly in the
truth of Kabbalah, and it was difficult for him to publ ish his radical
discoveries. At the begi nning of his Mitpa�at Sef
arim ("Coveri ng of the
Holy Books," 1768), he says that he suppressed h is doubts for forty
years but now feels compelled to reveal the truth. He then proceeds to
list nearly three hundred pieces of evidence culled from the pages of
the Zohar that prove the late editing of the book. These incl ude traces
of medieval sources, corrupt Aramaic, halakhic mistakes, historical
allusions, and anachronisms. Nevertheless, Emden attempted to pre­
serve the sanctity of at least part of the Zohar and concluded that there
was an ancient core to the book, though even this was composed
hundreds of years after Rabbi Shim'on. Many passages, including the
entire /'didrash ha-Ne 'elam, were added in the thirteenth century.29
Emden laid the groundwork for modern research on the Zohar. In
the nineteenth century, Adolf Jellinek proceeded to compare one of
Moses de Leon's Hebrew writings with the Zohar. He showed that
most of the Hebrew book appeared in the Zohar in Aramaic, some­
ti mes with variations. The Hebrew work also quoted zoharic passages,
attributing them to ancient sources.30 Jellinek concluded that Moses de
Leon was, at least, one of the authors of the Zohar. He also detected the
influence of thirteenth-century Kabbalah on the Zohar's ideas and
terminology.31
The historian Hei nrich Graetz relied on Jel linek but i nsisted that
the Zohar was written entirely by Moses de Le6n. Graetz worsh iped
rationalism and saw Kabbalah as a malignant growth i n the body of
Judaism. He called the Zohar a "book of lies" and claimed that its
fantasies and i llusions had blinded Jews to the light of rational truth.
Accepting the testimony recorded by Isaac of Acre, Graetz charged
that Moses de Le6n was nothing but a con niving forger.32
The reserach of Gershom Scholem has broken through the ratio­
nalistic prej udice of the ni neteenth century and demonstrated that
Kabbalah is a vital component of Jewish thought and history. Scho­
lem's first lecture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925 was
entitled: "Did Moses de Leon Write the Zohar?"33 The question occu­
pied him for many years. He sifted the writi ngs of kabbalists, critics,
and scholars. He examined the Zohar's language, termi nology, ideas,
13

27.
INTRODUCTION
and symbolism i n the context of early Kabbalah and medieval Hebrew
thought and literature. He explored the literary structure of the Zohar,
its fictional format, and historical allusions. Scholem demonstrated
that the peculiar Aramaic was constructed from literary sources, par­
ticularly the Babylonian Talmud and Targum Onqelos; it contains
grammatical errors and medieval Hebraisms. The mystical theosophy
of the work proved to be pure thirteenth-century Kabbalah, which
derives from medieval Jewish Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.
Scholem undertook a detailed analysis of all of Moses de Leon's
extant Hebrew writings, most still in manuscript. Moses draws on the
Zohar frequently, quoting it directly as an ancient work, paraphrasing
or altering it, combining separate passages. "His method is that of the
artist who shapes the material into any form he desires."34 Moses'
Hebrew exhibits characteristics of the Zohar's Aramaic: the same
strange syntax, the same new meanings, the same incorrect grammati­
cal forms. These similarities appear not only in Moses' translations of
Zohar passages but also when he is writing on his own. Gradually
Scholem became convinced that the author was one and the same. But
whereas Graetz had condemned Moses de Le6n, Scholem defended his
pseudepigraphic venture as a legitimate expression of religious creativ­
ity.3 S
Scholem's student, Isaiah Tishby, has further advanced Zohar
scholarship. His Mishnat ha-Zohar ("The Wisdom of the Zohar") in­
cludes extensive analyses and numerous translations arranged by sub­
ject.
14

28.
4
Traditionalists often feel threatened by the findings of critical
scholarship. Some still cling to the view that the Zohar is ancient.
They suspect that historical research is out to destroy the wonder and
mystery of the book. But reality is more amazing than fantasy. Under­
standing when, how, and by whom the Zohar was written only en­
hances one's appreciation.
By the end of the thirteenth century, the condition of Spanish
Jewry was on the decline. The Jews were still a vital source of revenue
for the royal treasury; they remained so until their expulsion in 1 492.
However, their political power was already weakening. I n the height
of the Reconquista (the Christian reconquest of Spain from the Mos­
lems), the Jews had played an important role in resettling and adminis­
tering captured cities. But during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile
( 1 2 52-1 2 84), the Reconquista was nearly completed, and the Jews' use­
fulness as colonizers soon disappeared. The emerging class of Christian
burghers saw the Jews as competition. Jewish economic opportunities
were gradually restricted.
Officially, the Jews were the property of the king and enjoyed his
protection, but even so there was little security. The reign of Alfonso
X provides a d ra matic example. Called Alfonso the Wise, he was a
patron of scholarship and employed several Jewish translators and
scientists. H e also produced a comprehensive code of law, Las Siete
Partidas. This code was not enforced until the fourteenth century, but
it reflects the attitudes prevailing during Alfonso's reign. The Jews
were guaranteed physical security and the right of worship, but they
were required to wear a "distinguishing mark upon their heads" in
accord with the edict of the Fourth Lateran Council ( 1 2 1 5). A j udicial
procedure was outlined for suspected cases of ritual murder. Following
older authorities, the code states that Jews are tolerated as a reminder
of their ancestors who crucified Jesus.3 6 Toward the end of his reign,
Alfonso's attitude toward the Jews worsened. In 1 2 79 he i mprisoned all
the Jewish tax collectors; in 1 28 1 , on a Sabbath, he arrested all the Jews
i n Castile while they were attending synagogue and demanded a huge
ransom in gold.37
15

29.
INTRODUCTION
The picture was not altogether bleak. The Jews lived independent­
ly, within their own tradition and legal system. Because of the special
relationship the Jews had with the King, the Christian m unicipalities
had no authority over them. Na�manides, the famous rabbi of Gerona
( 1 194-1 270), states in his Commentary on the Torah (Deuteronomy
28:42): "We dwell in countries like the other inhabitants or better."
Still, there was an overwhelming sense of galut, exile. The Zohar
expresses this feeling and offers words of comfort and encouragement.
Once, it is told, Rabbi El'azar encountered a gentile who chal­
lenged the chosenness of Israel:
You say that you are closer to the Supreme King than all
other nations. One who is close to the King is always happy,
with no pain, fear, or oppression. But you are always in pain
and grief, more oppressed than all other people in the world.
As for us, no pain, oppression, or grief even comes near. We
are close to the Supreme King; you are far from Him!
Rabbi El'azar stared at this man and he turned i nto a heap of
bones. Then the rabbi said:
The words spoken by that wicked man I once asked the
prophet Elijah. He told me that these words were once ar­
ranged before the Blessed Holy One in the Academy in Heav­
en, and this was the response. . . . I ndeed we are closer to the
Supreme King than all other nations. I ndeed it is so! For the
Blessed Holy One has made Israel the heart of the whole
world. Thus Israel lives among the other nations as the heart
among the limbs of the body. Just as the limbs cannot exist
even for a moment without the heart, so all the nations cannot
exist without Israel. . . . The heart is tender and weak; yet it is
the life of all the limbs. Only the heart perceives pain and
trouble and grief, for it contains life and intelligence. The
other limbs are not close to the King. They have no life; they
perceive nothing. Js
Israel feels the pain of the world. As the heart, they also nourish
the world, and their exile enables them to perform this vital function.
"Rabbi f:Iizkiyah said, 'The Blessed Holy One placed Israel in exile
16

30.
INTRODUCTION
among the nations only so that the nations would be blessed because of
them, for Israel causes blessings to flow from above to below every
day' " (Zohar 1 :244a).
Christian teaching claimed that Israel's exile was a sign of divine
punishment for their rejection of Christ. The Zohar turns this argu­
ment upside down and cites biblical verses to indicate that Israel's
lowly condition is the result of God's loving, parental discipline,
whereas Christianity's rise to power is evidence that God has forsaken
them and offers them no correction.39
Despite these rationalizations, the Zohar does not gloss over the
humiliation of exile. "There is no nation that mocks Israel to their face
and spits in their face like the children of Edom."4 0 Israel is persecuted
and oppressed; the time is ripe for the coming of Messiah. The author
of the Zohar offers a number of apocalyptical calculations that set the
date of redemption around 1 300. Strong yearnings and pleadings are
heard: "The exile is drawn out, and sti ll the Son of David has not
come." "How long will we be in this exi le? . . . When will You deliver
us from it?"4 1
God is viewed not only as the transcendent source of deliverance
but also as a being who is personally involved in Israel's exile. The
Talmud records a teachi ng by the real Shim'on son of Yo�ai: "Wherev­
er Israel went in exile, Shekhinah [God's Presence] was with them." The
Zohar expands this notion into a dramatic theme: the exile of Shek­
hinah. God shares Israel's suffering and yearns along with them for
reconciliation and redemption.4 2
Meanwhile, Israel needs strength and hope. Torah offers both,
providing a noble way of life and the promise of a better life. "Even
when they are among the nations, bowed down among them, they are
like a lion with the laws of Torah, the ways of Torah."
Were it not for all those good things that they look forward to,
that they see written in the Torah, they would not be able to
endure and to bear the exile. But they go to the houses of
study, they open the books and see all those good things they
are waiting for. They see in the Torah everything promised to
them by the Blessed Holy One, and they are comforted i n
their exile.43
In a revealing passage, the Zohar indicates that kabbalistic creativ­
ity is a means of sustaining the people:
17

31.
INTRODUCTION
If you do not know how to fortify yourself in exile, how to
assert the power to protect your own child, then go out, go
out to be strengthened by following the tracks of the sheep
[see Song of Songs 1 :8]. . . . Rabbi El'azar said, " 'The tracks of
the sheep' means the students of the Academy who later came
into the world [i.e., the kabbalists] and discovered Torah by
following the straight path. The path is open; so they create/
renew ancient teachings every day. Shekhinah rests upon them
and listens to their words."44
By renewing tradition, by discovering and inventing ancient
teachings, the Zohar overcame the degradation of exile and celebrated
the vision of Israel's spiritual destiny.
The Christian environment leaves its mark in other ways as well.
Yitz�ak Baer has pointed out the influence of the Spirituals, the radical
wing of the Franciscans, for example, their glorification of poverty as a
religious value.45 There are also parallels in the Zohar to the Christian
midnight vigil and the four levels of meaning in Scripture.4 6
However, in an era of religious disputations and dogmatism there
was little room for open sharing and tolerance. The Zohar sees Israel
as the heart of the world, God's chosen people. They have sole claim on
truth. The faith of all other peoples is "a faith of foolishness."47
Throughout the Zohar there is an implicit rejection of Christian belief
and an affirmation of the faith of Israel. In one passage Rabbi Shim'on
ritualizes these attitudes:
Rabbi Shim'on said, "When the Torah scroll is taken from the
ark to be read in public, the heavenly gates of compassion are
opened and love is aroused above, and a person should say the
following: ' Blessed be the name of the Master of the world! . . .
I am a servant of the Blessed Holy One, before whom and
before whose glorious Torah I bow at all times. I do not place
my trust in a human being; I do not rely upon a son of
divinity, but rather, on the God of heaven, who is the God of
truth, whose Torah is truth, whose prophets are truth, and
who abounds in deeds of goodness and truth. I n Him do I
trust; to His holy and glorious name I utter praises!' "48
Without naming Jesus directly, the Zohar makes it clear that Israel
does not need him. All Jews are the sons of God. "Out of His love for
18

32.
INTRODUCTION
them, He called them 'My first-born son, Israel' (Exodus 4:22)."49 The
role of atoning for the sins of the world is assigned by Rabbi Shim'on
to the righteous, and Isaiah 53 is cited as the proof text:
When the righteous are seized by disease or affliction, it is in
order to atone for the world. Thus all the sins of the genera­
tion are atoned for. When the Blessed Holy One wants to
bring healing to the world, He strikes one righteous human
among them with disease and affliction; through him He
brings healing to all. How do we know this? As it is written:
"He was wounded because of our sins, crushed because of our
iniquities ... by his bruises we were healed" (Isaiah 53:5).50
Two Zohar passages contain mythical descriptions of the Son of
God:
The Blessed Holy One has one son who shines from one end
of the world to the other. He is a great and mighty tree, whose
head reaches toward heaven and whose roots are rooted in the
holy ground. (Zohar 2: 105a)
The son is the cosmic tree, the trunk of the body of the
sefirot
chart in §6). Another passage reads:
The mystery of the word is written concerning the mystery
on high: "What is His name? What is the name of His son, if
you know?" (Proverbs 30:4). That name is known:
�eva 'ot
YHVH
is His name. The name of His son? Israel is his name,
as it is written: "My first-born son, Israel." All the keys of
faith hang from Israel. He praises himself, saying:
"YHVH has
said to me: 'You are My son'" (Psalms 2:7). Indeed it is so, for
Father and Mother have crowned him and blessed him with
countless crowns; they have commanded everyone: "'Kiss the
son!' (Psalms 2: 12). Kiss the hand of this son!" As if it were
possible, He has given him power over all, for all will worship
him. "Lest he turn angry" (Ibid.). For he has been crowned
with judgment and compassion. Judgment for one who de­
serves judgment; compassion for one who deserves compas­
sion. All the blessings of above and below belong to this son. 51
19
(see

33.
INTRODUCTION
The son is not earthly Israel but its divine archetype, the central
sejirah called Beauty of Israel. Of course the theme of the Son of God is
not original to Christianity; its ancient mythological derivation is well
known. However, the use of such language and imagery by a Jewish
mystic in Christian Spain is remarkable. The author of the Zohar is
translating Christological formulations into the language of kabbalistic
myth.
Similarly, Trinitarian formulae appear occasionally in descrip­
tions of the sejirot. Graetz, the great Jewish historian who maligned
Kabbalah, was shocked to find that "the Zohar even contains utter­
ances which seem favorable to the Christian dogma of the Trinity of
the Godhead."5 2 Christian kabbalists adduced such passages as proof
that Kabbalah accorded with the Catholic faith. Here too we are
dealing with an ancient mythological image adopted and transformed
by Christianity and imitated by the author of the Zohar, who no doubt
rejected the Christian formulation. That it is possible to reject the
Trinity and yet be i nfluenced by its terminology is demonstrated
dramatically by a contemporary of Moses de Leon, Abraham Abulafia.
A prophetic kabbalist, he calls the Trinity "a lie and a deception" in
one composition, but elsewhere refers to the three aspects of the
intellect as God, Son of God, and Holy Spi rit.53 The Zohar is more
subtle in its borrowings.
There are certain similarities between the Trinity and the sejirot.
The Trinity consists of three persons of God, all coequal, coeternal,
and indivisible. It is considered a profound mystery of faith. The se
firot
are ten manifestations of the I nfinite, ten aspects of the divine person­
ality. "It is they and they are It" (Zohar 3 : 70a). They are called "the
mystery of faith," raza di-meheimanuta.54 Abulafia offers this revealing
criticism:
The masters of the kabbalab of se
firot intended
Name and flee from the Trinity, but they have
As the gentiles say, "He is three and the three
certain kabbalists believe and say that Divinity
and the ten are one. 55
to unify the
made it ten!
are one," so
is ten se
firot
The term se
firot first appears in the early cosmogonic text Se er
f
Ye:z:irah ("The Book of Creation"), written between the third and sixth
centuries. There the word means "numbers, ciphers" and refers to
metaphysical potencies that are stages of creation. Gradually Gnostic
20

34.
INTRODUCTION
elements were assimi lated, and in the Bahir, the fi rst kabbalistic text
(edited in the twelfth century), the sefirot constitute a mythical scheme.
The Spanish kabbalists adopted this scheme and expanded it.s6
The ten se
firot are sometimes grouped in three triads. The last
sejirah, Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, includes them all. Near the
beginning of the Zohar ( 1 : 3 2b) appears this cryptic description of the
emanation of the sefirot:
Three emerge from one; one stands in three;
enters between two; two suckle one;
one suckles many sides.
Thus all is one.
The Oneness of God was a vital issue. The traditional Jewish
declaration of God's unity is the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear 0
Israel! YHVH, our God, YHVH is one." Christian interpreters adduced
the threefold mention of God in the verse as proof of the Trinity, and
as early as the twelfth century, Jewish commentators countered this
i nterpretationY The Zohar (2:43b) has this to say:
The unification [recited] every day is the unification of the
verse in the Bible: "Hear 0 Israel! YHVH, our God, YHVH is
one." They are all one; therefore He is called One.
But there are three names! How are they one? Even
though we say "One," how are they one?
Through the vision of the Holy Spirit it is known. In the
vision of the eye that is closed these three are revealed as
one . . . . " YHVH, our God, YHVH" are one. Three colors, and
they are one.
The passage is cryptic. Closing the eye and rotating the eyeball is
described elsewhere in the Zohar as a technique for attaining a vision
of the colors of the se
firot. 58 In the Shema, "YHVH, our God, YHVH"
designates the m iddle triad of sejirot, which linked together, demon­
strates the unity of God.s9
In another passage (Zohar 3 : 162a), two rabbis on a mystical jour­
ney to the Garden of Eden hear a voice saying: "They are two; one is
joined to them, and they are three. When they become three, they are
one." The rabbis are confounded, but the guardian of the Garden
explains the meaning: "These are the two names in the Shema: 'YHVH,
21

35.
INTRODUCTION
YHVH. ' 'Our God' joins them . . . . When they join together, they are
one in one union."
It was a kabbalistic custom to correlate i ndividual words of the
liturgy to specific se
firot. However, in his specific wording with regard
to the Shema, the author of the Zohar appears to be responding to the
Christological interpretation. Appropriating the Trinitarian theme, he
transposes it into a kabbalistic key. The structure of the se
firot offers
ready-made triads, and the result is a curious harmony. An element of
parody may also be involved. In several narrative passages of the Zohar
such an element can be detected.60
The Zohar's emphasis on faith and belief is colored by the Chris­
tian environment, but its prime motivation was provided by the con­
temporary rationalistic trends. The kabbalists perceived these trends as
a threat to tradition, and as we have seen (above, § 2), Moses de Leon
was deeply concerned. He felt called upon to defend traditional belief
and practice, and he indicates in one of his Hebrew works that this was
his purpose in revealing the ancient secrets: "God knows that my
i ntention is good: that many may become wise and strengthen their
faith in God."61
Despite Moses' critical attitude toward the effects of philosophic
rationalism, the Zohar's theology is influenced by philosophy. Kabba­
lah grew out of philosophy, or as some kabbalists would say, outgrew
it: "Their heads reach the point where our feet stand."6 2 The kabba­
lists drew on Jewish Neoplatonic and Aristotelian teaching but were
not confined to it. Their name for the ultimate reality of God is Ein
SoJ, the I nfinite. Ein Sofis inaccessible to thought and has no attributes.
This accords with Avicenna's and Maimonides' conception. In the
Zohar, however, Ein So
fis rarely mentioned.63 The focus of theological
discussion is the sefirot, the manifestations of Ein SoJ, Its mystical
attributes. Here God thinks, feels, responds, and is affected by the
human realm. He and She comprise the divine androgyne; their ro­
mantic and sexual relationship is one of the most striking features of
the Zohar. Though ultimately God is infinite and indescribable, the
sefirot are real "from our perspective."64 They provide the human
being with a way to know the Unknowable. "Through these gates,
these spheres on high, the Blessed Holy One becomes known. Were it
not so, no one could commune with Him."65 The human need to
contact God i nforms the Zohar's theology. Its emphasis on a living,
22

36.
INTRODUCTION
dynamic faith is a reaction against the pure, cold logic of the philoso­
phers. The critique is expressed by the poet Meshullam Da Piera (first
half of the thirteenth century): "Those who deny the proper attributes
of God speak out until faith has been drained."66 In the Zohar Rabbi
Yo�anan exclaims: "We must not destroy the faith of all; we must
maintain it!" (Zohar 1 : 1 36a [Midrash ha-Ne 'elam ]). The kabbalists are
called "sons of faith."67
Some of the radical rationalists questioned the divine origin of the
Torah. The Zohar responds by saying that not only does the Torah
come from God; her words and letters are permeated with God. Study
flowers into revelation.6B
The Zohar is also capable of employing philosophical terminology
and techniques for its own purposes. In the early stratum, Midrash ba­
Ne 'elam, where Moses de Le6n is still making the transition from
philosopher to kabbalist, there are numerous allegories modeled on
philosophical exegesis.69 Gradually mystical symbols replace philo­
sophical allegories.7 0 Still, the author knows how to apply the phi lo­
sophical method of spiritualizing the commandments to the ritual of
sacrifice, which is thereby transformed i nto a ritual of meditation.7 1
The kabbalist worships the God of Moses yet acknowledges the
God of Maimonides. Divinity is not only Father in heaven but also
Prime Mover. The Zohar strives to unite the two. It plays with the
divine names Sibbeta de-Sibbatin, "The Cause of Causes," a nd Saba de­
Sabin, "The Old Man of Old Men."7 2
On the theoretical level the issue was faith; on the practical level it
was religious observance. Laxity i n observance was prevalent, due to
the inroads of rationalism and heresy as well as to more mundane
factors: laziness and ignorance. The moralistic literature of the times
lists a number of miz:vot (commandments) that were neglected, for
example, te
ftllin (phylacteries), mezuzah (the sign on the doorpost),
sukkah (the booth constructed on the Festival of Sukkot), the ritual
washing of hands, and sexual morality. The Zohar emphasizes the
importance of all of these.73
The Zohar rarely discusses mystical experience, but it is eager to
point out the mystical significance of Torah and mi7:vot. Studying and
living Torah are the surest ways to direct encounter with God. " Hap­
py are those who engage in Torah, for everyone who engages in Torah,
it is as if he were joined to the Blessed Holy One" (Zohar 3 :9b). "When
23

37.
INTRODUCTION
a human being observes the commands of Torah, Shekhinah [the Divine
Presence] walks with him constantly and never departs from him"
(I : 2 3 0a).
The author speaks with the passion of a mystical moralist. If one
invites the poor into his sukkah, seven biblical heroes abide there with
him. If one arrives early at the synagogue, Shekhinah joins Herself to
him. Every day lived in accordance with Torah is woven into the soul's
garment of splendor.74 "Through an action below, an action above is
aroused" (Zohar 3 : 3 1 b). Even the inner dynamics of Divinity depend
upon the human realm. The union of the divine couple, Tif'eret and
Shekhinah, is effected by righteous action and destroyed by sin.75
Torah is not merely law; it is cosmic law, a blueprint of creation.76
The Zohar illuminates the cosmic aspect of Torah. It strengthens
tradition and at the same time transforms it. The literal sense is
sanctified, but readers are urged to "look under the garment of To­
rah. "77
The idea of searching for a deeper layer of meaning is not original
to Kabbalah. It was adopted from Jewish philosophers who had taken
it from Islamic tradition; earlier roots lie in Christian sources and
Philo.7B The Zohar employs this method for its own mystical and
mythical exegesis.
Biblical and rabbinic Judaism had fought to suppress and elimi­
nate divine mythology. Medieval Jewish philosophy tried to complete
the task by explaining away all anthropomorphisms, thus purifying
the conception of God. The Zohar, responding to a profound human
need, resurrects myth and transforms the Torah into a mythical text.
The first verse of Genesis is interpreted as a description of the emana­
tion of the cosmic seed and the divine womb.79 Theosophy replaces
theology. The inner life of God is the hidden meaning of Torah, the
true tradition: Kabbalah.
24

38.
5
To promote this mythical, mystical tradition and establish its
authenticity, the Zohar employs a number of devices. It reports teach­
ings from the Academy of Heaven and from the mouth of the prophet
Elijah.80 It concludes other teachings with: "This has been said," "This
has been established," "As the Comrades have established." At times
these refer to actual talmudic or midrashic sources; at times to parallels
in the Zohar.81 An entire imaginary library provides proof texts when­
ever necessary. Its fantastic catalog includes the Book of Adam, the
Book of Enoch, the Book of Wisdom of King Solomon (perhaps intend­
ed to be confused with the Apocryphal work of the same name), the
Book of Rav Hamnuna Sava, the Book of Rav Yeiva Sava, the Book of
Rav Yeisa Sava.82 The Zohar cites "our Mishnah" or "the mystery of
our Mishnah" when the actual source is another Zohar passage or
medieval Kabbalah. 83
A transformation of tradition could not succeed without ancient
authorization. Moses de Leon secured this by recording the teachings
in the names of the second-century sage Rabbi Shim'on son of Yo�ai
and his wide-ranging circle. The figure of Rabbi Shim'on provided
ideal sanction. Miraculous stories about him appear already in talmu­
dic times. Opposed to the Romans, he was sentenced to death; so he
and his son hid in a cave for twelve years. The eighth-century apoca­
lyptic work Nistarot she! Rabbi Shim 'on ben Yof?ai ("The Mysteries of
Rabbi Shim'on") records heavenly secrets revealed to him in the
cave.84 Crowned by these traditions, Rabbi Shim'on assumed the role
of Holy Light in the Zohar.ss
The pseudepigraphic format was not something new. A whole
ancient literature of pseudepigrapha is extant, and in medieval times
the practice continued. An early kabbalistic text, the Bahir, was attrib­
uted to a rabbi of the first century, Ne�unya son of ha-Kanah. Moses
de Leon also composed several short pseudepigraphic pieces.86
Rabbi Shim'on and his circle enabled Moses to transmit radical
teachings as ancient wisdom. At the end of one mythical passage Rabbi
Shim'on alludes to this by exclaiming: "Torah has been restored to her
25

39.
INTRODUCTION
ancientry!"87 On the material plane the ancient format commanded a
high price, as indicated in the diary of Isaac of Acre.B8
Moses de Leon felt that the teachings he espoused were both new
and ancient.89 In one of his Hebrew books he writes: "Only recently
has this spring of mystery begun to flow through the land."90 God
delights in new words of Torah and has commanded everyone to
expand Torah daily.9 1 On the other hand, Kabbalah stretches back to
Moses at Mt. Sinai and ultimately to Adam.92 Adam is the source of
Kabbalah because the essential teaching conveys our original nature:
the unbounded awareness of Adam. This nature is the most ancient
tradition. It has been lost; that is the tragedy of Adam's Sin. The
mystic yearns to recover the tradition, to regain cosmic consciousness,
to see from one end of the world to the other. 93
As a kabbalist, Moses de Leon was communicating this ancient
wisdom. His style could be biblical or mythological, rabbinic or medi­
eval; the essence was eternal. As one link in the chain of Kabbalah, he
was transmitting something beyond himself and felt free to cite the
sages who i nhabited his i magination.
The pseudepigraphic and fictional design proved i rresistible to
centuries of readers. It also had a powerful effect on Moses de Leon as
he composed the Zohar. This becomes clear through a comparison
with his acknowledged Hebrew works, written later. As Jellinek and
Scholem have demonstrated, the Hebrew writings depend heavily on
the Zohar. However, some of the Zohar's most profound and radical
teachings are not found in these books, for example, the detai led
descriptions of the long-suffering and impatient aspects of God. 94
These secrets are so overwhelming that three of the Comrades die
while hearing them. Apparently Moses felt free to set them down only
in the name of Rabbi Shim'on.
The style of the Zohar is far superior to that of the Hebrew
writings. In his acknowledged works Moses still displays originality
and creativity, but the poet is subservient to the systematic theoso­
phist. In the Zohar these roles coalesce, and the reader finds hi mself
wandering through an enchanted forest, a mysticism of the imagina­
tion. Flights of lyrical freedom break through to the realm of the
Divine, unlocking for the kabbalist, or any sensitive seeker, the deepest
secrets of being. Nothing is dry or doctrinaire; everything breathes,
sparkles, and flows. I mages, colors, and streaming sermons fill the
space between page and reader. The Zohar overwhelms the senses,
26

40.
INTRODUCTION
threatening one's puny, linear understanding with hints of the beyond
within.
The pseudepigraphic venture has succeeded. By surrenderin g his
identity to Rabbi Shim'on and company, by adopting a talmudic alter
ego, Moses de Leon has been liberated. Relieved of the burden of self­
consciousness, he is free to plumb the depths of his soul and soar to
timeless dimensions. Released from the constraints of acknowledged
authorship, he can record his own ecstasy and pathos. The personality
of Rabbi Shim'on makes him immune from criticism and enables him
to publish all secrets. He expounds mythology a nd mysticism; revels in
anthropomorphic and erotic imagery. The Zohar alludes to these liber­
ating effects:
[Rabbi Abba said:] "If the Holy Light [Rabbi Shim'on] had
not revealed it, I could not reveal it" (Zohar 1 :2 1 7a).
[Rabbi Yose said:] "We should reflect upon this, though if the
Master were not present, I would not speak" (2: 144a).
Rabbi Judah said, "The generation in which Rabbi Shim'on is
present is completely worthy and devoted, completely sin­
fearing. Shekhinah dwells among them. This is not so in other
generations. Therefore words are expressed openly and not
concealed. In other generations this is not so; secret words
from above cannot be revealed, and those who know are
afraid." ( 3 :79a)
The literary trick has worked its magic on the author as well as his
audience.
Something profound has come over Moses de Leon or through
him. Parts of the Zohar may have been composed by automatic writ­
i ng, a technique that is well attested i n the history of mystical litera­
ture.95 Joseph Abulafia, an acquaintance of Moses, possessed "the
writing name" (shem ha-kotev), a holy name that focused m editation and
placed one in a trance in which automatic writings were produced.
The following report appears in a kabbalistic manuscript:
This name was given to me by the sage Rabbi Joseph ha-Levi
son of Todros ha-Levi, may his memory be a blessing. H e told
me in kabbalah [i.e., handing down a secret tradition] that it
was the writing name and that with it he would write whatev-
27

41.
INTRODUCTION
er came to his hand. He wrote a booklet in my presence and
gave it to me, saying that he had written [it] by the power of
this [name].96
Joseph son of Todros ha-Levi Abulafia was a friend and benefactor
of Moses de Leon. Several of Moses' Hebrew writings are dedicated to
him. He was also one of the first to receive booklets of the Zohar from
Moses, as Isaac of Acre indicates in his diary. What Isaac also reports is
that one current opinion was "that Rabbi Shim'on son of Yo�ai never
composed this book [the Zohar], but rather, this Rabbi Moses knew the
writing name, and by its power he wrote these wondrous things. In
order to obtain a h igh price in silver and gold, he hangs his words on
high tamarisks, saying: 'I am copying these words for you from the
book composed by Rabbi Shim'on son of Yo�ai and his son, Rabbi
El'azar, and his Comrades.' "97
Later, still searching for the true origin of the Zohar, Isaac ap­
proached Joseph Abulafia. Joseph tried to convince him that automatic
writing played no part in the book's composition, but his proof is
suspect:
He [Joseph] said to me: "Know and believe that Se ha-Zohar
fer
[The Book of Zohar] written by Rabbi Shim'on son of Yo�ai
was in the possession of Rabbi Moses: from it he copied and
gave to whomever he pleased. Now look at the great test with
which I tested Rabbi Moses to see whether he was copying
from an ancient book or by the power of the writing name.
The test was this: Many days after he had written out for me
numerous booklets of the Zohar, I hid one of them. I told him
that I had lost it and begged him to copy it for me again. He
said to me, 'Show me the end of the preceding booklet and the
beginning of the following one, and I will copy it completely
for you like the first one which you lost.' I did so. A few days
later, he gave me a copy of the booklet. I compared it with the
earlier one and saw that there was no difference at all between
them, nothing added or deleted, no change in content or style,
'the same language and the same words' (Genesis 1 1 : 1), as if
one had been copied from the other. Could there be a greater
test than this or a more difficult trial?"98
28

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INTRODUCTION
As Isaac is soon told by some skeptical residents of Toledo, this is
no proof. Moses could have composed the original under the influence
of the writing name and then made copies whenever he wished. Joseph
was either a mazingly naive or deliberately covering up for his friend.
Automatic writing would have contributed to the Zohar's freedom
of style and to its peculiar Aramaic. Foreign and invented languages
are known to appear in automatic writings. Several peculiarities are
shared by the Zohar and such works: neologisms, reversed sequences of
letters, and strange conglomerations of words in otherwise clear sen­
tences.99 If automatic writing contributed to the composition of the
Zohar, so did conscious pseudepigraphy, fiction, and editing. 1 00 At
times Moses de Leon is an inspired scribe recording the wisdom of
Kabbalah as it courses through him, a vessel channeling the kabbalistic
collective unconscious. The fact that the Zohar is suffused with thir­
teenth-century Kabbalah does not invalidate such a hypothesis; auto­
matic writing may correspond to the agent's normal mental content. 1 01
Similarly, the Zohar's Aramaic derives from literary sources studied
by Moses de Leon. Neologisms appear, but also medieval Hebraisms,
Spanish syntactical constructions, and mistakes i n grammar and vocab­
ulary. The language is idiosyncratic. 1 02
Certain passages in the Zohar are anonymous and appear as utter­
ances of a heavenly voice. 1 0 3 Usually, though, the teachings are attrib­
uted to Rabbi Shim'on and his Comrades. Moses may have imagined
that he was transmitting their words. But Moses is not only a medium;
he is an author. He constructs discussions among his cha racters and
weaves dramatic narratives; he employs humor and parody; he alludes
to other Zohar passages; he responds polemically to Spanish Christians
and Jewish rationalists. The Zohar's style of commentary embraces the
precision of textual analysis and the abandon of contemplative fantasy.
Its creativity is motivated both consciously and unconsciously.
All creativity links the conscious and the unconscious, the person­
al and the transpersonal. From a mystical perspective, creativity flow­
ers when the human mind draws on its divine source. According to
Moses Cordovero, that is why the kabbal ists are cal led Reapers of the
Field:
The Reapers of the Field are the Comrades, masters of this
wisdom, because Malkhut [Shekhinah] is called the Apple Field,
and She grows sprouts of secrets and new floweri ngs of
29

43.
INTRODUCTION
Torah. Those who constantly create new interpretations of
Torah are harvesting Her. 104
The kabbalist knows that he is not the source of his teaching. His
name is not essential. When a donkey driver on the road reveals
mystical secrets to two of the Comrades, they dismount and kiss him
and say: "All this wisdom was in your hand, and you were driving our
donkeys?! Who are you?" He responds, "Do not ask who I am. Rather,
let us walk on and engage in Torah. Let each of us speak words of
wisdom to l ight up the way."1 05
Anonymity is raised to a virtue. "The best of all is he who is
neither specified nor revealed, all of whose words are hidden" (Zohar
3 : 1 8 3a). "Every word hidden from the eye gives rise to sublime bene­
fit." 106 Hiddenness is the key to the Zohar's success. Moses de Le6n
will not reveal his own identity, but occasionally he appears to drop a
hint. "In this zohar [splendor] dwells the one who dwells. It provides a
name for the one who is concealed and totally unknown." "Moses . . .
this zohar of his is concealed and not revealed." 10 7 Both passages
convey theosophical secrets and can be explained accordi ngly, but they
may also allude to Moses' best-guarded secret, his own role and identi­
ty.
Identities are often hidden in the Zohar. A talmudic sage is dis­
guised as a donkey driver; a nameless little boy turns out to be a
wonder child and stuns the rabbis with his wisdom. Rabbi Judah says
to Rabbi Isaac, "It seems that this child is not a human being!" No one
can be dismissed too easily because "sometimes in those empty fools,
you discover bells of gold!" l O B
The anonymous author plays with the names and identities of his
characters. Shim'on son of Yose, mentioned in the Talmud, becomes
Yose son of Shim'on. 1 09 Pin�as son of Ya'ir, Rabbi Shim'on's son-in­
law, is transformed into his father-in-law. 1 1 0 A fantastic fictional
framework is created in which rabbis who lived centuries apart walk
together through the hills of the Galilee, discovering and sharing
secrets of Torah. Anachronism is not a concern; playfulness is part of
the design. "A little bit of foolishness reveals the sublime glory of
wisdom better than any other way in the world" (Zohar 3 :47b).
The Zohar is a mystical novel based on the Torah. Its characters
include Rabbi Shim'on and his Comrades, biblical figures, and the
sefirot, the various aspects of God's personality. It is sometimes difficult
to distinguish between these last two sets of characters. Abraham
30

44.
INTRODUCTION
embodies the sefirah of f!esed, Divine Love; Isaac represents Din, Judg­
ment: Jacob harmonizes the two aspects and symbolizes Raf?amim,
Compassion. The stories in Genesis about these three Patriarchs are
interpreted in the Zohar as accounts of their mystical journeys, their
temptations a nd tests, and their attainment of divine qualities. Moses is
the most perfect human being; he is arrayed in all ten se ro t. 1 1 1 The
fi
Zohar on Exodus presents his spiritual biography and his mythical
romance with Shekhinah, the feminine Divine Presence. After the Reve­
lation at Sinai there are relatively few narrative sections in the Torah;
from here on, the Zohar weaves several exegetical tales involving
Rabbi Shim'on and his circle and the a mazing characters they encoun­
ter.
Through all these mystical episodes, the Zohar never loses sight of
its goal: the creation of a mystical commentary on the Torah. God is
hidden in the Torah; hidden and revealed there, because Torah is
God's Name. This kabbalistic idea means that Torah expresses not
only divine will but divine being. 1 1 2 The mystic who studies Torah is
meditating on the Name of God. He sees through the text into the
texture of divine life.
Through commentary, midrash, and mystical hermeneutics, the
Zohar introduces the reader to this hidden dimension of Torah, con­
fronts him with it. The literal text is the starting point, but the Zohar
is dissatisfied with superficial meani ng. At times, its tone seems no less
irreverent than that of the rationalists: " 'In the seventh month, on the
seventeenth day of the month, the ark [Noah's ark] came to rest on the
mountains of Ararat' (Genesis 8:4) . . . . What do we care if it rested here
or there? It had to rest somewhere!" 1 1 3 If the Torah consisted only of
mundane stories, "we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary
words, and better than all of them! . . . . Ah, but all the words of Torah
are sublime words, sublime secrets." 1 14
The Zohar may abandon the literal sense of a verse or, conversely,
employ the tech nique of mystical literalness, reading hyperliterally. 1 1 5
The goal is to penetrate, to unlock the secret content o f the word, to
elicit its divine essence. It is impossible to capture and formulate this
flowing essence. As Maimonides stated in the Introduction to his Guide
o
f the Perplexed, ultimate secrets cannot be taught, only indicated:
Know that whenever one of the perfect wishes to mention,
either orally or in writing, something that he understands of
these secrets, according to the degree of his perfection, he is
31

45.
INTRODUCTION
unable to explain with complete clarity and coherence even
the portion that he has apprehended, as he could do with the
other sciences whose teaching is generally recognized. Rather,
there will befall him when teaching another that which he
had undergone when learning himself. I mean to say that the
subject matter will appear, flash, and then be hidden again, as
though this were the nature of this subject matter. 1 1 6
Such is the nature of Torah, according to the Zohar: "Torah
removes a word from her sheath, is seen for a moment, then quickly
hides away . . . . She does so only for those who know her i ntimate­
ly." 1 1 7 The Zohar does the same. It hides more than it reveals; only the
careful, devoted reader can learn from it. It is a common experience to
read several lines of Zohar, or an entire passage, and then wonder what
the message was. Cascading imagery overwhelms coherent teaching.
But that is the nature of the subject matter: " . . . the whole spectrum of
colors flashing, disappearing. Those rays of color do not wait to be
seen; they merge i nto the fusion of zohar. " 1 1 8
The Zohar yearns to reveal the divine light permeating Torah, but
since that dimension of meaning is beyond words, words are employed
as symbols. Torah becomes a treasure house of symbols, pointing to
that which cannot be expressed. Imagination guides the Zohar's read­
ing of Torah and is essential to the reading of Zohar. God can only be
"known and grasped to the degree that one opens the gates of i magina­
tion." 1 19
32

46.
6
The i magery and symbolism are rich and fluid, but they follow a
pattern, the pattern of the sejirot. The Zohar rarely describes the entire
sefirotic system. It even avoids the term se
firot and instead speaks of
lights, levels, links, roots, garments of the King, crowns of the King,
and dozens of other i mages for the individual se
firot. The reader must
interpret the symbolism and identify the corresponding se
firah. 1 20
As noted above, the term sejirot originally meant "numbers" or
numerical potencies, but in medieval Kabbalah the se
firot became
stages of God's being, aspects of divine personality. Their pattern and
rhythm inform all the worlds of creation. Prior to the emanation of the
se
firot, God is unmanifest, referred to as Ein SoJ, Infinite. God as
I nfinity cannot be described or comprehended. A fourteenth-century
kabbalist writes: "Ein Sof . . . is not hinted at in the Torah, the Proph­
ets, the Writings, or the words of our Rabbis, may their memory be a
blessing; but the Masters of Service [the kabbalists] have received a
little hint of lt." l 2 1
Critics charged that the theory of Ein Sof and the se
firot was
dualistic, that by positing and describing ten aspects of Divinity,
Kabbalah verged on polytheism. 1 22 The kabbalists insisted that Ein Sof
and the se
firot formed a unity "like a flame joined to a coal." 1 2 3 "It is
they, and they are It" (Zohar 3 : 70a). "They are Its name, and It is they"
( 3 : 1 1 b). From the human perspective, the se
firot appear to have a
multiple and independent existence. Ultimately, though, all of them
are one; the true reality is the lnfinite. 1 2 4 Nevertheless, the mythologi­
cal character of the system cannot be denied; it is a prominent feature
of the Zohar.
The sejirot are often pictured in the form of Primordial Adam or
as a cosmic tree growing downward from its roots above. As the
kabbalists were quick to point out, these images should not be taken
literally; they are organic symbols of a spiritual reality beyond normal
comprehension. At the start of one of his most anthropomorphic
descriptions, Rabbi Shim'on cites a verse from Deuteronomy: "Cursed
be the one who m akes a carved or molten image, the work of the hands
33

47.
INTRODUCTION
of an artisan, and sets it up in secret." 1 2 5 Sefirotic imagery is i ntended
to convey something of the beyond; worshiping its literalness prevents
profound communication.
According to Genesis 1 :27, the human being is created in the
image of God. The sefirot are the divine original of that image. As
Primordial Adam, they are the mythical paragon of the human being,
our archetypal nature. The human race has lost this nature, but if one
were to purify himself, he would reconnect with the sefirot and become
a vessel for them. 1 2 6 This is what the Patriarchs attained and, to a
greater degree, Moses. The se
jirot generate the ultimate confusion of
identities: human and divine. Such sublime confusion catalyzes the
process of enlightenment.
From above to below, the se
jirot enact the drama of emanation, the
transition from Ein Sof to creation. From below to above, they are a
ladder of ascent back to the One.
Keter (Crown) is the first sefirah, coeternal with Ein Soj It repre­
sents that aspect of the Infinite that turns toward manifestation and is
therefore called Ra'Z!on, Will. It is also known as Ayin, Nothingness,
"having more being than any other being in the world, but since it is
simple and all other simple things are complex compared with its
simplicity, in comparison it is called Nothing." 1 2 7 No differentiation
or i ndividuality exists in Keter, no "thingness." From this se
jirah all
emanation flows. First the primordial point of Hokhmah (Wisdom)
shines forth. Though it is the second sejirah, !fokh,;,ah is called Begin­
ning because Keter is eternal and has no beginni ng.
The point expands into a circle, the sejirah of Binah (Understand­
ing). Binah is the womb, the Divine Mother. She receives the seed, the
point of !fokhmah, and conceives the seven lower se
jirot. Created being
too has its source in Her; She is called "the totality of all individua­
tion." 1 28 She is also "the world that is coming," constantly coming and
flowing. 1 2 9
The three highest se
firot represent the head of the divine body and
are more hidden than the offspring of Binah. She gives birth first to
lfesed (Love) and Din (Judgment). This pair of se
firot is also called
Gedullah (Greatness) and Gevurah (Power). They are the right and left
arms of God, two sides of divine personality: free-flowing love and
strict j udgment, grace and limitation. Both are necessary for the world
to function. Ideally a balance is achieved, symbolized by the central
se
jirah, Tif'eret (Beauty), also called Ra�amim (Compassion). However,
if judgment is not softened by Love, Din lashes out and threatens to
34

49.
INTRODUCTION
destroy life. This is the origin of evil, called Sitra A�ra, the Other Side.
From a more radical perspective, evil originates in divine thought,
which eliminates waste before emanating the good. The demonic is
rooted in the divine. 13 D
Tif'eret is the trunk of the sefirotic body. He is called Heaven,
Sun, King, and the Blessed Holy One, the standard rabbinic name for
God. He is the son of Hokhmah and Binah.
The next two se
firot are Ne�a� (Endurance) and Hod (Majesty).
They form the right and left legs of the body and are the source of
prophecy. Yesod (foundation) is the ninth sefirah and represents the
phallus, the procreative life force of the universe. He is also called
'7:addiq (Righteous One), and Proverbs 10:25 is applied to Him: "The
righteous one is the foundation of the world. 1 3 1 Yesod is the axis mzmdi,
the cosmic pillar. The light and power of the preceding se
firot are
channeled through Him to the last sefirah, Malkhut.
Malkhut (Kingdom) is also called Shekhinah (Divine Presence). The
term Shekhinah appears frequently in earlier rabbinic literature, where
it signifies God's Presence and Immanence. In Kabbalah it takes on
new-ancient mythological meaning. Shekhinah is the daughter of Binah,
the bride of Tif'eret. The joining of Tif'eret and Shekhinah becomes the
focus of religious life. Human righteous action stimulates Yesod, the
Righteous One, and brings about the union of the divine couple (Zohar
3 : 1 1 0b). Human marriage symbolizes divine marriage. Sabbath Eve is
the weekly celebration of the hieros gamos, the sacred wedding. This is
the ideal time for mystics to make love. 1 3 2
The tenth sefirah appears under many other names: Earth, Moon,
Matronita, M irror, Rose, Throne of Glory, Justice, Garden of Eden,
Holy Apple Orchard. She reflects all aspects of Divinity and sustains
all the worlds below, though "She has nothing at all of Her own."133
Shekhinah is also Keneset Yisra 'el, the mystical Community of Israel.
All of Israel are Her limbs (Zohar 3 : 2 3 l b). She symbolizes the people's
intimate connection with God and accompanies them in exile. 1 34 She
prevents the masculine aspect of God from punishing Her children,
though at other times She Herself administers punishment. 135 She­
khinah is personally threatened by human sin because it taints Her and
ruins Her union with Tif'eret: "When the powerful serpent up above is
aroused by the sins of the world, it joins with the Feminine [Shekhinah]
and injects venom into Her. 1 36 The Male [Tif'eret] separates from Her
because She has been defiled" (3 :79a).
The union of Tif'eret and Shekhinab gives birth to the human
36

50.
INTRODUCTION
soul, 1 37 and the mystical journey begins with the awareness of this
spiritual fact of life. Can a human being experience Shekhinah directly?
The Talmud had posed this question rhetorically: "Is it possi ble for a
human being to walk behind Shekhinah?" "Is it possible to cleave to
Shekhinah?" No. Rather, one should engage in good deeds and thus
imitate God . 1 3 8 Kabbalah is more daring. In the words of Joseph
Gikatilla, a friend and colleague of Moses de Leon, "As to what the
Rabbis have said: ' Is it possible for a human being to cleave to She­
khinah?,' it certainly is possi ble!" I39
Shekhinah is the opening to the Divine: "One who enters must
enter through this gate" (Zohar 1 :7b). Once inside, the se
firot are no
longer an abstract theological system; they become a map of conscious­
ness. The mystic climbs and probes, discovering dimensions of being.
Spiritual and psychological wholeness is achieved by meditating on the
qualities of each sefirah, by i mitating and integrating the attributes of
God. The path is not easy. Divine will can be harsh: Abraham was
commanded to sacrifice Isaac in order to balance love with rigor. 1 40
From the Other Side, demonic forces threaten and seduce. Contempla­
tively and psychologically, evil must be encountered, not evaded. By
knowing and withstanding the dark underside of wisdom, Abraham
was refined . 1 4 1
Near the top o f the sefirotic ladder, meditation reaches Binah. She
is called Teshuvah, Return. The ego returns to the womb of being.
Binah cannot be held in thought. She is called Who. Who is that? An
intuitive flash illuminating and disappearing, as sunbeams play on the
surface of water. 142
In the depths of Binah lies lfokhmah, Wisdom. The mystic is
nourished from this sphere. 143 It is so profound and pri mal that it
cannot be known consciously, only absorbed. Isaac the Blind, one of
the earliest kabbalists (ca. 1 1 60- 1 2 3 5), says: "No creature can contem­
plate [the wondrous paths of Wisdom] except one who sucks from It.
This is meditation through sucking, not through knowing. " 1 44
Beyond lfokhmah is the Nothingness of Keter, the Annihilation of
Thought. 1 45 In this ulti mate se
firah human consciousness expands,
dissolves into Infi nity.
The Zohar is rarely explicit about the ascent. In Kabbalah medi ta­
tion often takes place during ritual prayer; so the Zohar correlates
blessings and individual words of the liturgy with specific se
firot. The
goal is to unify the various aspects of God through focused awareness
37

51.
INTRODUCTION
and visualization. Successful prayer draws forth the flow of divine
blessing. 1 46 The ecstasy of sefirotic contemplation, however, seems
reserved mostly for souls who have departed this world or for the high
priest on the Day of Atonement. 147 Souls of the living who succeed in
prayer delight in palaces below Shekhinah. If especially devout, they
may be raised to the level of Y
esod or attain a sefirotic vision, 148 but the
highest se
firot are considered unapproachable. In fact the Zohar forbids
contemplation of Binah and what lies beyond Her. Deuteronomy 2 2 : 7
is cited a s the proof text: "Let the mother go; the children you may
take." 149 The Divine Mother is a cosmic question; Her chi ldren, the
seven lower sefirot, would seem more attainable. However, even con­
cerning these rungs of meditation, the Zohar offers little direct guid­
ance. The Patriarchs and other biblical heroes who mastered
individual sejirot serve as archetypes, but to the uninitiated, they are
awesome. Sefirotic imagery abounds, but the reader must decipher the
allusions, be open to the power of the symbol, and join the search.
Zohar is an adventure, a challenge to the normal workings of
consciousness. It dares you to examine your usual ways of making
sense, your assumptions about tradition, God, and self. Textual analy­
sis is essential, but you must engage Zohar and cultivate a taste for its
multiple layers of meaning. It is tempting and safe to reduce the
symbols to a fam iliar scheme: psychological, historical, literary, or
religious. But do not forfeit wonder.
What is the Concealment of the Book? 1 5°
Rabbi Shi m'on said
"Five chapters in a great palace; they fill the whole world."
Rabbi Judah said
"If so, they are the best of all."
Rabbi Shim'on said
"So it is, for one who has entered and emerged. 1 5 1
For one who has not entered and emerged, it is not so.
A parable.
There was a man who lived in the mountains.
He knew nothi ng about those who lived in the city.
38

52.
INTRODUCTION
He sowed wheat and ate the kernels raw.
One day he entered the city.
They brought him good bread.
He said, 'What is this for?'
They said, ' Bread, to eat!'
He ate, and it tasted very good.
He said, 'What is it made of?' They said, 'Wheat.'
Later they brought him cakes kneaded in oil.
He tasted them and said, 'And what are these made of?'
They said, 'Wheat.'
Finally they brought him royal pastry made with honey and oil.
He said, 'And what are these made of?' They said, 'Wheat.'
He said, 'I a m the master of all of these,
for I eat the essence of all of these: wheat!' 1 5 2
Because of that view, he knew nothing of the delights of the world;
they were lost to him.
So it is with one who grasps the principle
and does not know all those delectable delights
deriving, diverging from that principle."
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54.
HOW TO LOOK AT TORAH
Rabbi Shi m'on said
"Woe to the human being who says
that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words!
If so, we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary words
and better than all of them!
To present matters of the world?
Even rulers of the world possess words more sublime.
If so, let us follow them and make a Torah out of them!
Ah7 but all the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!
Come and see:
The world above and the world below are perfectly balanced:
Israel below, the angels above.
Of the angels it is written:
' He makes His angels spirits'
(Psalms I 04:4).
But when they descend, they put on the garment of this world.
I f they did not put on a garment befitting this world
they could not endure in this world
and the world could not endure them.
If this is so with the angels, how much more so with Torah
who created them a nd all the worlds
and for whose sake they all exist!
In descending to this world,
if she did not put on the garments of this world
the world could not endure.
So this story of Torah is the garment of Torah.
Whoever thinks that the garment is the real Torah
and not something elsemay his spirit deflate!
He will have no portion in the world that is coming.
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55.
ZOHAR
That is why David said:
'Open my eyes
so I can see wonders out of Your Torah!'
(Psalms 1 I 9: I 8),
what is under the garment of Torah!
Come and see:
There is a garment visible to all.
When those fools see someone in a good-looking garment
they look no further.
But the essence of the garment is the body;
the essence of the body is the soul!
So it is with Torah.
She has a body:
the commandments of Torah,
called 'the embodiment of Torah.'
This body is clothed in garments:
the stories of this world.
Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah;
they know nothing more.
They do not look at what is under that garment.
Those who know more do not look at the garment
but rather at the body under that garment.
The wise ones, servants of the King on high,
those who stood at Mt. Sinai,
look only at the soul, root of all, real Torah!
In the time to come
they are destined to look at the soul of the soul of Torah!
Come and see:
So it is above.
There is garment and body and soul and soul of soul.
The heavens and their host are the garment.
The Communion of Israel is the body
who receives the soul, the Beauty of Israel.
So She is the body of the soul.
The soul we have mentioned is the Beauty of Israel
who is real Torah.
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56.
ZOHAR
The soul of the soul is the Holy Ancient One.
All is con nected, this one to that one.
Woe to the wicked
who say that Torah is merely a story!
They look at this garment and no further.
Happy are the righteous
who look at Torah properly!
As wine must sit in a jar,
so Torah must sit in this garment.
So look only at what is under the garment!
So all those words and all those stories­
they are garments!"
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58.
THE CREATION OF ELOHIM
In the Beginning
When the King conceived ordaining
H e engraved engravings in the luster on high.
A blinding spark flashed
within the Concealed of the Concealed
from the mystery of the Infinite,
a cluster of vapor in formlessness,
set in a ring,
not white, not black, not red, not green,
no color at all.
When a band spanned, it yielded radiant colors.
Deep within the spark gushed a flow
imbuing colors below,
concealed within the concealed of the mystery of the Infinite.
The flow broke through and did not break through its aura.
I t was not known at all
until, under the impact of breaking through,
one high and hidden point shone.
Beyond that point, nothing is known.
So it is called Beginning,
the first command of all.
"The enlightened will shine like the zohar of the sky,
and those who make the masses righteous
will shine like the stars forever and ever"
(Daniel 1 2 : 3).
Zohar, Concealed of the Concealed, struck its aura.
The aura touched and did not touch this point.
Then this Beginning emanated
and made itself a palace for its glory and its praise.
There it sowed the seed of holiness
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59.
ZOHAR
to give birth
for the benefit of the universe.
The secret is:
"Her stock is a holy seed"
(Isaiah 6: I 3).
Zohar, sowing a seed for its glory
like the seed of fine purple silk.
The silkworm wraps itself within and makes itself a palace.
This palace is its praise and a benefit to all.
With the Beginning
the Concealed One who is not known created the palace.
This palace is called Elohim.
The secret is:
created Elohim"
"With Beginning,
(Genesis I : I ).
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